Lawsuit Faults Hotel Chain for Sex Assault on Guest
A former investment banker is suing a hotel chain, saying she was sexually assaulted after a hotel desk clerk in Finland gave a copy of her room key to a drunken fellow guest who claimed to be her husband.
"To this day, I still suffer from the memories of that night, and I am not able to put it behind me," Allison Fournier said at a Manhattan news conference at which she was joined by lawyer Gloria Allred.
Fournier said the man entered her room at the Hotel Kamp in Helsinki at 4 a.m. and began to sexually assault her.
Allred said the hotel clerk gave Fournier's key to the drunken fellow guest without checking his identification. She said Fournier was traveling alone and no one else was registered to her room.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
The Hotel Kamp operates under Starwood's international Luxury Collection chain. Starwood Hotels said in a statement that its policy is to ensure proper identification and verification before issuing a room key. "We are taking this allegation seriously and are working with the hotel in question to understand the facts and any breach of security that may have contributed" to the event, it said in the statement.
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